Comfort Zone challenge Birds

grandmaR

Love the challenges, but for this last one, I think the problem was too difficult for people to do with a fresh photo. It isn't like something that you can set up at home - to take a photo of a bird you have to go to where the bird is.

I think the idea of letting other people vote was a good one and also the ability to critique by other people. It was just that the subject was too difficult for anyone who was not already into birds (so not so much out of the comfort zone).

puzzledpaul

Well, yes ... to take a (straight) photo of any subject, you have to have that subject in front of the camera - avian is no different from anything else.
Agreed that if someone is going to 'specialise in avian / wildlife, then they're likely to want different kit from some other genres ... however, it is possible to get half decent pics using relatively basic kit and setups in a back garden or similar relatively controlled environment.

Whether any individual is going to bother to do this - if not generally interested in such subject matter is of course, a totally different thing

Whilst you're unlikely to get a decent shot of a small, timid, rare bird in a completely wild environment with a PnS, another local 'tog has been experimenting with getting swan 'wing flap' shots with a 70D + 18 -55 std kit lens @ 18mm end ... and getting some encouraging results ... imo.

As always, it's about how the pic is taken, light ... consideration of the background etc. Standing over the swan at normal human eye level, looking down on the swan, as per 99.99.. % of people using phones etc just doesn't 'cut it' ... for me, anyway.

To my (inexpert but fussy) eyes, a large % of 'wildlife / avian' content that is part of any generalist's website offerings could v. easily be pruned to save them memory / bandwidth because they've not taken on board some of the basics as applied to this subject matter.

pp

grandmaR

It was a good subject but more difficult for some people than others. I observe that a lot of the photographers in this group do quite a bit of wildlife photography Not the least of it is that they know where the birds are likely to be. If we could have used non-fresh photos I think there are many of mine which could benefit from the experience and expertize of the group. But I was a bit to much under the weather to be able to get myself out and take the new photos.